Itinerary: See prequel thread. In addition, this time we will be passing Down House, home of Charles Darwin, misguided eminent Victorian and inventor of the Darwin Award. Here we'll pause for a moment's silence to mourn Texas, the missing link between church and state.

Which bike: Bring something with a granny gear, unless you want a challenge.

Recon mission. At Crystal Palace Park I run into a guy on a mobility scooter – not literally – who raced in the 50s pushing a big fixed wheel. Codename Sisyphus tells me his back and knees are wrecked. He then admires the welds on my bike, which isn't something I can take credit for.

Pass a small herd of Megaloceros. They shouldn't be a problem as long as they aren't startled.

My main area of interest this day is Down House, further south. I explore the possible routes incorporating it.

Confirm the impossibility of cranking my singlespeed velocipede up one of the short but deadly hills on offer.

Visit James Wolfe in Westerham. We discuss the capture of Quebec, which he insists was worth the three musket balls he might have avoided if evolution hadn't favoured him with the uprighteous blessings of bipedalism. I remind him of his declaration to his officers: "Gentlemen, I would rather have written that poem [Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard] than take Quebec tomorrow," which ends with the narrator mourning a cyclist who took on too great an incline:

One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;Another came; nor yet beside the rill,Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;The next with dirges due in sad arraySlow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.

Also inform him that, speaking as an American, the French were later helpful to us.

Denmark HillWe don't go very far up this. If we carried on we'd end up on Herne Hill with its famed velodrome; instead we'll be scaling the sleeping policemen on Champion Hill. twinned with Capitol Hill

Hogtrough HillWesterham Hill would be more direct, but Hogtrough offers a much more peaceful decent, to better enjoy the view. Also worthwhile is the spin along Pilgrims' Way, "the historic route supposed to have been taken by pilgrims from Winchester to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in Kent" which closely follows "a pre-existing ancient trackway dated by archaeological finds to 500–450 BC, but probably in existence since the stone age."twinned with Nob Hill, a neighborhood in San Francisco

Hosey HillProof that what goes down (Hogtrough) must come back up. Leads to Churchill's Chartwell. twinned with Bunker Hill

Rogues HillAfter passing the medieval Penshurst Place, the climb to Bidborough, with its front row seat to the North Downs, begins here.twinned with George Roy Hill, director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Bartley Hill RoadActually it's Bartley Mill Road. Two hills in quick succession because one is never enough.twinned with Hill Street Blues.

King's Hill RoadThe only thing that stands between Burwash and that pyramid. The elevation is up there with Ditchling Beacon; fortunately you get an extra mile to enjoy the climb. twinned with the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore

Cackle StreetThis goes gloriously down from Brightling, but a reminder that the hills aren't quite over swiftly follows, so,twinned with Heartbreak Hill, infamous incline near the end of the Boston Marathon